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Day 1
‘Time, everyone – time is of the essence,’ Davy says to the 8 a.m. briefing – a semi-circle of grey-faced detectives who haven’t been to bed. Priorities—’
Harriet coughs.
Davy looks at her, flushes; steps aside.
Harriet’s voice is loud and strong. ‘Jon-Oliver Ross,’ she informs the team. ‘Thirty-eight years old, of Holland Park, west London. Wealth manager to high-net-worth individuals at a private bank called Dunlop & Finch. This victim was well-to-do, probably well connected. First priority while we wait for forensics is his journey to Huntingdon. Did he come by car or train? I want CCTV off the stations including King’s Cross. Did he travel alone or did our perp mark him? There will be a lot of financial work on this one and yes, I’m looking at you Colin Brierley.’
Colin is MCU’s resident nerd – an expert in technology, the police investigations database HOLMES and the minutiae of financial records. Colin can tolerate vast panoramas of tedious detail, where others glaze over and lose not merely their thread but the will to live. Colin, though, has a childish excitement about the more inanimate side of police work. He doesn’t like to leave the office and so is handed laptops and iPads, phone records or reams of bank statements and he can sit and sit, drilling down into them with a kind of prurient glee. Colin is also the least politically correct man in East Anglia, and for this accolade he has seen off stiff competition.
Harriet has finished and the silence gives space for a discussion, so Davy says, ‘Who or what is Sass?’ Just to open it up, really.
‘Person who killed him?’ says Kim.
‘Judith Cole might have killed him,’ Davy says.
‘That’s a bit of a stretch – they didn’t know each other by all accounts,’ says Harriet.
‘Something about her isn’t right,’ Kim says. ‘Her husband told us he was unexpectedly working at home at four thirty-ish, the time she went to walk the dog’ – at this Kim makes large quotation marks in the air – ‘but he says the dog was lying on his feet the whole time.’
‘Should we question the dog?’ asks Colin.
‘Yeah, let’s ruff him up,’ says Kim, making a little barking sound.
‘Where were the children?’ Harriet asks.
‘At a sports club at the school,’ Kim says.
‘Ross’s next of kin,’ Harriet says to the room. ‘Gareth and Branwen Ross, mum and dad, from north Wales. I sent plod round this morning to notify them, so we should expect them sometime today or tomorrow. In their eighties. They’ll be knocked sideways, so respect and care, everyone, yes?’
In Davy’s periphery, Manon ambles in through the double doors carrying her usual paper bag of pastries and a coffee. She has a rolling gait these days, as well as a double chin, as if someone has attached a bicycle pump to her backside and inflated her. She hails team four across the room, saying, ‘Don’t mind me,’ and Davy can tell she’s wanting to sidle in on the briefing. She’ll perch on a desk and Harriet will be all ears, awaiting her pearls of investigative wisdom. Well, he’s not having it.
‘Boss,’ he whispers to Harriet, nodding in Manon’s direction, ‘shouldn’t we keep it confidential, it is a murder briefing …’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Davy, it’s only Manon. She’ll nod off in a minute.’
‘Who was he then?’ says Manon, breathless. She is smiling at Harriet and Davy can see the vicarious excitement on her face. ‘Your posh stiff,’ she says. ‘Got an ID yet?’
‘Jon-Oliver Ross,’ says Harriet, peering into Manon’s paper bag. ‘Have you got an apricot one of those? Rich banker type, from Lon—’
‘Fuck,’ says Manon.
‘What?’ says Harriet.
‘Fuck,’ Manon says again, feeling behind her for a surface on which to perch or steady herself. ‘He’s Solly’s dad. Jon-Oliver is Ellie’s ex.’
Manon
‘Only met him a couple of times, for like five minutes, but he’d started having contact in the last six months. Wanting to see Solly. That’ll be why he was here – in Huntingdon, I mean.’
Her mind is whirring, too full to listen to what Harriet is saying in reply. She must tell Ellie. Should she just blurt it out? Will Ellie be upset? Does some corner of her carry a residue of love for him, like a cupboard shelf that hasn’t been wiped? Does she harbour faint hopes of a reconciliation? Or will she not care? Perhaps she’ll be relieved that he’s out of her hair.
No, she thinks, Ellie had come round to the idea of Jon-Oliver playing a part in Solly’s life. Visits once a month had been accommodated, though Manon was usually either working or on her way out when they occurred. The thought of Solly brings tears to Manon’s eyes (tears come easily these days) – no chance of a father now. All the potential of that relationship cut down, before it could begin. It is a tragedy for Solly.
The sound of Harriet’s voice becomes louder and clearer as Manon rejoins the present. She becomes aware that the three of them – she, Harriet and Davy – have moved into Harriet’s office.
‘Where’s Ellie now?’ Harriet is saying, pacing behind her desk; coiled spring, hitching at her bra straps. Harriet’s body is sinewy, taut because she’s a ball of constrained movement – a rubber band at full stretch, wanting to ping. Physically, Manon thinks, we couldn’t be more different. I have no inner spring. I am in constant preparation for sitting down.
‘Home with Sol I guess,’ says Manon. ‘They were there when I left for work.’
‘Let’s bring her in for interview,’ Harriet says, half to herself and half to Davy. ‘What can she do for childcare?’ she asks Manon.
‘Childminder’ll take Sol at short notice,’ says Manon. ‘Go easy on her. Look, can I break the news to her? I don’t know how she’ll—’
‘You know you can’t,’ says Davy. ‘You’re connected to the case. We’ll need to keep you away from all future briefings. And you’re not allowed to search the database or ask officers about the case.’
‘He really needs to calm his tits,’ Manon says to Harriet.
‘That’s enough, you two,’ says Harriet.
Manon realises Davy wants to tell Ellie himself so he can watch her, see how she reacts. Everyone close to the victim is a suspect and how they take the news is part of a close-circuit observation that is often disguised as sympathy and support. We are giving you a liaison officer to keep you informed/watch your every move and report it back to the investigation.
‘One more thing, Manon,’ says Davy. ‘Where was Ellie yesterday afternoon and evening?’
‘Am I being interviewed?’ asks Manon, placing a protective hand on her bump. ‘Because if I am, I want all the proper gear – recording device and everything.’
Davy
‘Should we put a trace on Judith Cole’s phone?’ he says, now that he and Harriet are alone. ‘See what she was really doing in the woods at that time? Kim thinks she wasn’t walking the dog.’
Harriet has closed the door to her office and is pacing, the wings of her jacket pinned back by her hands on her hips. ‘Nah, Judith Cole’s not the issue. Woman from across the road who didn’t know him? Who cares what she was doing in the park? We don’t have grounds for a trace.’
‘Except her being the last person to see him alive, and also lying,’ Davy points out.
‘Yes, but she might be lying for some other reason. Just because she called it in, doesn’t put her in line for investigation – you know the Samaritan rule. Priority is questioning Ellie Bradshaw. She’s the person who can give us the most on Ross – who he was, who might have wanted to stab him.’
‘What are our main lines, boss?’
‘I’d say financial work and exes – so that’s Ellie. And the photo in his jacket – the blonde. We need to find out who she is. Maybe she’s Sass. There’s a strong money motive, with someone like him.
‘Judith Cole has come in for re-interview,’ Davy says.
‘Has she? Right, OK, you can have another go at her – gently, Davy – just to fill in the gaps in her statement while we wait for Ellie Bradshaw to come in. But no more than that – husband’s a lawyer, I don’t want a complaint. And Davy? Take Kim with you. Sounds like she was doing a very good job last time.’
Davy is upended by jealousy, like a small boy in rough surf, while the adult in him says, ‘Righto, boss.’
‘Your husband says you weren’t walking the dog,’ Kim says, as soon as the bleep sounds, without warning or preamble.
Judith Cole blanches to the colour of her semi-sheer white blouse, which has a white vest visible beneath. At her throat is a sparkling pendant, a single diamond on a silver chain. Unlike the last time they saw her, she is freshly blow-dried and wearing immaculate makeup.
‘I did have the dog,’ she says, though Davy hears uncertainty in her voice. ‘He must be mistaken.’
‘Why would you walk over a busy main road to Hinchingbrooke Park when there’s a nicer one at the end of your road, which is nearer?’ Kim asks.
‘I don’t think it’s nicer,’ says Mrs Cole. ‘I like Hinchingbrooke Park. I can let the dog off the lead and he can run around.’
‘It was pitch dark though,’ says Kim. ‘Seems a bit odd.’
‘Yes, it was dark, but it wasn’t late – only four-ish. Do you have a dog?’ Mrs Cole asks.
Kim and Davy are silent.
‘Well, you see, if you had a dog, you’d know that owning one means venturing out in snow, hail, darkness, you name it. A dog’s gotta do what a dog’s gotta—’
‘Davy?’ Harriet is at the door. ‘A word, please.’
He and Kim step outside.
‘CCTV from King’s Cross has come in. I’d like you to take a look.’
‘Right, so there’s Ross,’ Harriet says, pointing at the screen. They are standing around Colin’s computer, looking at the grainy images of King’s Cross station platform as people make their way to board the train.
Davy watches Ross put his ticket into the barrier and walk through it. He strides down the platform with confidence, coat well cut. He looks like a businessman on his way to a meeting that will not challenge him greatly. His face is unfazed, neither angry nor anxious. How little we know of what lies ahead.
‘Look at this fella,’ Harriet says.
‘Who?’
Harriet is leaning over Colin and tapping on his keyboard to set the tape back a few frames. ‘There.’
She points at a big man, bald with a black smudge at his ear, possibly an earpiece. He wears a bomber jacket and underneath it he is stocky and muscled, causing his arms to sit wide. The image quality is poor. He is coming through the ticket barriers shortly after Ross.
‘He’s looking at Ross like he’s dinner,’ Harriet says.
Even on grainy CCTV footage, they can all see the man’s focus is on his quarry, who is just ahead of him. He glances down briefly to get his ticket from the barrier, but then his eyes are back on Ross, hurrying to keep up with him and then boarding the same carriage.
‘Who is he? That’s what we need to find out,’ Harriet says.
They all straighten, away from the screen.
‘I’ve looked at the Huntingdon CCTV and this chap does not get off the train with Ross, so where does he get off? That’s question one,’ Harriet says. ‘And where does he go? It’s identifying him that’s going to be the problem.’
‘What’s the timing on that?’ Davy asks. ‘We need to get the information off that ticket machine.’
‘So, Ross goes through the barrier at 3.08 and forty seconds. The other guy is going through twenty seconds later, so at 3.09 p.m. exactly. We’re going to need the station staff to identify whether his ticket was bought with a card.’
‘Might’ve paid cash,’ says Davy. ‘We should also capture the rest of his journey at the London end, off station CCTV and underground, roads.’
‘We could email his picture to local forces, see if anyone recognises him,’ Kim suggests.
‘How about Crimewatch?’ Davy says. ‘Do you know this man?’
Everyone groans.
‘I don’t think we’re ready to be buried in a gazillion false leads just yet,’ says Harriet. ‘But he’s marking him, right? I mean, he’s definitely marking him.’
The others nod, Davy regretting he is not more reassuring in the face of her need for it. There is so much to do, so many tiny steps to complete in just this fragment of the case. He can feel himself getting into a state, a feeling of panic which renders him inactive when what he needs to do is hurry up. And forensics will be in tomorrow, which will present them with still more avenues for inspection. And he hasn’t even resolved the dog-no-dog question and the small matter of why Judith Cole is lying. Not to mention the fact he’s starving. And who, or what, is ‘Sass’?
‘Are you all right, Davy?’ Harriet asks.
He realises he has been rubbing his brow and frowning at the floor.
‘Yes boss, I’m fine. Just wondering where to begin,’ he says, with a weak smile. He wishes his face was more Jack Reacher, less Charlie Brown. ‘I’m still curious about what Ross was saying – the Sass thing.’
Harriet lifts her chin – a kind of worried nod – and Davy wonders if his display of anxiety will make her fearful she’s put the wrong man on the job. He needs inspiration – the kind of moment when the memory of a phrase in interview, an unconscious connection made, an imaginative idea of an avenue to try, all these coalesce into investigative brilliance. Combined with luck, you can sometimes crack them that way.
But not when you’re desperate, overloaded and vaguely panicking.
Kilburn, north London
Bernadette
—sting testing one two three.
Stop. Rewind. Record.
Right, my memo of evidence. Most people would record this on their phones but I can’t work mine. It’s an android and I’ve only just worked out how to find a number and dial it. Anyway, Sanjeev had one of these knock-off dictaphones on the market, so here we go. I am Birdie Fielding and this is a true and accurate account of everything that’s happened. I apologise now if I go off the point a bit.
I came out like anyone would – to see what all the tooting and commotion was about. I heaved out through the door of the Payless Food & Wine, could see them all gathering on the corner where Iceland is. I turned over the ‘Closed’ sign and locked up.
And out into the crowd – the rubberneckers eager for a glimpse of misfortune. Wheelie shoppers, niqabs, prams, hoop earrings. A whole mass on the pavement, spilling into the road. The air was soft outside Shoe Zone and Palace Amusements – this was back in November, ever so mild. I remember thinking, this is nice, should’ve got out sooner.
I pushed through to the centre. I’m not one to loiter at the back. I spotted Nasreen from the cash and carry, who smiled at me. Never liked Nasreen. Competitive. Always asking me how busy I am at Payless. I smiled back as if we were friends.
Now I saw what they were all staring at – a body on the ground, thrown there by a car I shouldn’t wonder, but she was coming round, squeezing her eyes as if she was in pain. Not dead then. And people were beginning to shuffle away with their disappointment at her being alive. She lay there, a mass of skirts like an upended toilet doll. Everything black: lace, broderie anglaise, in layers – and DM boots poking out. Her eyes were fluttering, black kohl pencil against porcelain skin, and she must’ve spotted the few remaining stragglers getting their mobiles out to call 999 because she shook her head saying, ‘No, no. I’m OK. I’ll get up in a minute.’ Then she opened her eyes fully – I could see it was a struggle – and her gaze fell upon me. I was bending right over her by this point. She signalled to me so I put my face next to hers. She didn’t smell how you expect Goths to smell – no cheapo joss sticks or Body Shop musk. She smelled expensive. Citrussy.
‘No cops,’ she whispered to me, ‘no ambulance. Can you get me into your shop?’
Why was she asking me? Well, it wasn’t the first time we’d met, was it?
It’s not at all like me to help somebody. My gut instinct is to keep out of the way of other people’s needs and wants. I live by a policy of non-intervention: I don’t want to send in ground troops and never be able to get them out. So I was already out of my comfort zone when Nasreen’s dad, Sathnam, helped me carry the Goth into Payless, depositing her at the foot of the stairs to my flat.
She was slumped and I wondered if she was losing consciousness. I put my arms around her neck and tried to hoist her up the stairs like a body in a life jacket – me being the life jacket.
She grimaced, pushed her head to one side. ‘I can’t breathe …’
‘You think you’ve got problems,’ I said, panting.
I was forced to change position. I tried the bridal lift and let me tell you, it required Herculean strength to get all 20 stone of me and all of her up those stairs. Each step was a heaving stomp, the kind Frankenstein’s monster would take. At the top, once the front door was flung open (and that was a world of pain, her propped against the wall while I fumbled for my keys), I pitched towards the sofa and deposited her down on it with some force.
I collapsed to my knees, panting, then looked up at Tony, there on the wall, and crossed myself – I don’t know why, I figured it’s what he would have wanted – and said, ‘Sweet Jesus, Tony, I hope she doesn’t die on me. Not in my flat.’
She didn’t die.
She slept. For a couple of hours, as it goes. Then she seemed to come round, though her eyes were still closed, and she shook her head from side to side, saying ‘They’re coming to get me. They’re going to get me.’
I gave Tony a look, which said, ‘We’ve got a right one here.’ Because there’s only one thing worse than a Goth, and that’s a paranoid Goth. A Goth with conspiracy theories.
Why did she pick me? Well, she’d been coming into my shop for a few months, since the heatwave last summer. I recognised a kindred spirit because despite it being 30 degrees, she wore a long-sleeve black T-shirt, black trousers with all manner of rips and rivets, and DM boots. I, too, was clad from my wrists to my ankles and nearly dying in the heat. Anyone who is fat will recognise the reluctance to bare flesh, even in tropical temperatures. Perhaps it wasn’t flab she was covering up – impossible to know the state of her physique under all that garb – and anyway, who knows why Goths keep it under wraps? But I nodded at her capacious sleevage and said, ‘Sweltering, isn’t it? Still, nice day for Lambrini, that’ll be £2.50 please,’ and handed her bottle of sweet pear wine back to her across the counter. It was to be a couple more weeks before she said a word to me.
At first it was just a faint, ‘Hiya,’ from under a canopy of kohl black eye pencil. Then, come September, she shivered, and said, ‘Season’s turning.’ Quite the poet.
She always bought Lambrini – the drunkard’s tipple of choice. Even the millionaire bloke who invented Lambrini drank himself to death, cheap and swift. I assumed she was taking it to a bench in Kilburn Grange, to join the other winos congregating there. They sit slumped, talking shite, seeping piss, and watching the ladies in hijabs on the outdoor gym equipment.
Then, about a month before the incident that flattened her in front of the Payless Food & Wine (so this would’ve been October), she came into the shop swaying, approached the counter with her bottle as usual, and promptly sank to the floor. I leaned over it, said, ‘Are you all right?’ but there was no response.
She was out cold.
I dragged her to the back of the shop, where there’s a frayed old armchair (which I’ll be honest, doesn’t smell too good) and allowed her to sober up out there. So by the time the accident happened in November, we were quite close really.
So, back to her being out cold on my sofa: she was sleeping and sleeping, perhaps working off months of the Lambrini in her system, perhaps recovering from whatever damage the car had done when it hit her. For a time, I moved around her laid-out body in the lounge, sort of wafting in and out, clattering a bit, washing things up, hanging some laundry in the box room – generalised fussing which got louder the more I wanted her to wake up. I began wondering if it would be all right to leave her on her own or if it was all a ruse and she’d leap up and steal all my stuff the minute my back was turned. The more time went on, the more unlikely this seemed – perhaps I got used to her and so feared the stranger in her less. I went downstairs and opened up the shop, thinking that she couldn’t leave the flat without passing me at the till. Things were pretty quiet. I popped up a few times to check on her, but nothing.
It was kind of boring waiting for her to wake up, so I had this idea that I should go and buy her a towelling robe for when she came round. She’d be wanting a bath, I reasoned, and you can’t step out of a nice hot bath and immediately Goth yourself up, can you? It’s quite mad what you think of when you’re out of your comfort zone, and someone being in my flat was way out of my comfort zone.
I could have gone to Primark which is right by the Payless on the Kilburn High Road, but I’m quite tight by nature, and what the fuck was I doing buying a complete stranger a bathrobe anyway? So I headed to the British Heart Foundation shop by Argos.
I’ll tell you the most annoying thing about being fat – the weight! No, I mean the actual weight: carrying it around. Walking anywhere does me in. If you’re not heavy, you cannot imagine what it feels like for your limbs to pull you down with every step. Imagine lifting pillars of concrete each time you place a step. Imagine gravity being such a force in your life that you’re pulling against it with every movement. That’s what it’s like being me. I’m lugging myself places. Before I’d even crossed the road outside Poundland, I was out of puff.
I got this bathrobe – pink, a bit scratchy but serviceable – in the British Heart Foundation shop. I know she would have liked a black one, being a Goth, but how many black towelling bathrobes do you see in the shops? I like looking in charity shops, browsing, but I can never find anything to fit – everything’s tiny. I see it as evidence that everyone else is expanding, too. I am not alone, if the charity shops are anything to go by – full of size 8s and 10s, but no lovely roomy upper sizes. No one’s shedding the size 20s as far as I can see, because taking weight off? It’s easier to broker peace in Syria or get to grips with quantitative easing.
Once I got into the flat, I was surprised to see the sofa empty and I looked at Tony, as if to say, ‘What’ve you done with her?’ I thought I was stuck with a size 10 towelling robe which I wouldn’t even be able to get one arm into, but then she appeared, her face seeming bruised from sleep, her hair matted to one side of her head.
‘How are you feeling?’ I said.
‘Better,’ she said, but she was walking gingerly, a hand to her side.
‘I think you should see a doctor,’ I said.
‘No.’
I could see she was in pain because of the way she was holding herself. Movement was causing her to wince. Perhaps she’s broken something, I thought. How could a car hit you and not cause a fair bit of damage? I’d want a doctor to look me over. I’m at an age where death is more a distinct possibility than a distant dream.
She sat slowly, lowering herself by increments down onto the sofa.
‘I’m Birdie, by the way,’ I said. ‘Bernadette, but everyone calls me Birdie.’ I don’t know why I said ‘everyone’ – not as if I’ve got an entourage.
‘Angel,’ she said, but I didn’t believe that was her name. I mean, who is called that in real life? Also, it was as if she was saying it for the first time.
‘Cup of tea?’ I said. ‘Or would you like a bath? I bought you a bathrobe.’ And I held out my charity shop plastic bag.
‘That was kind of you,’ said Angel, peering into the bag reluctantly, and I wished I hadn’t bothered.
Her black hair hung in wet rats’ tails. She was back on the sofa, with her feet up. The bathrobe, now I could see it in a better light, was more peach than pink and had an unfortunate Care Bear on the pocket.
I could examine her face, too, without all that black muck around her eyes. She was a corker – I mean, not mildly attractive. I mean a proper looker, top class. Pale skin without a single blemish, and gas-blue eyes that you couldn’t help doing a double take over. Black was definitely not her hair colour, not with eyes like that. I’d say she’d be auburn or maybe even redhead. Her peach-coloured lips were what the term ‘bee-stung’ was invented for – they gave her a slightly teary look. She was maybe not supermodel beautiful, but she could definitely get paid to do a catalogue or the Marks & Sparks website.
Another thing I knew for sure at that moment: she wasn’t a proper Goth. No offence to Goths, but they’re quite often minging.
She was looking around my living room – the velveteen sofa on which she was curled, tobacco-coloured with ruffled seams; the two recliners, facing the telly; the nets, which were not grey because I’d soaked them in Vanish only the day before; the swirly carpets, gas fire, knobbly Anaglypta on the walls. I’d not noticed before that my decor was rocking an elderly vibe, though I’m only in my fifties myself, which I had probably inhaled from Nanny Fielding. I love my lounge: it’s the perfect place to sit in front of the television and pop things in your gob.
‘Why’ve you got a picture of Tony Blair on your wall?’ Angel asked.
‘Because I love him,’ I said. ‘I’m the last person on earth who still thinks he’s marvellous.’
Oh he has his faults, it’s not that I don’t realise that. For example, although he’s even more handsome than he used to be, now that he’s grey and perma-tanned from the Middle East, he’s always travelling and that’d get me down, him being away all the time.
So I’m not blind, I know he’s not perfect. The God thing, that makes me uneasy, and towards the end he let it be known how irritated he was by the general public and that was probably a mistake. And he’s partial to making a bob or two, but which of us isn’t? The whole B-Liar thing, though: the epic righteousness of it would be enough to send anyone postal.
And in his heyday, my goodness! He united everyone. He didn’t make you hang your head in shame. All those years the Labour Party suffered with the bad comb-overs, the stumbling on the beach and then Tony came along, our shiny straight-talking saviour. We almost couldn’t believe he was left wing. He made me feel safe: I could sleep well knowing his hand was on the tiller. Three terms he gave us and now it’s as if that was a crime.
I got up and kissed my two fingers, then planted them on Tony’s lips. His cross/stern eyebrows seemed to raise at this and he appeared to smile, in that way that said, ‘Let’s not let this go too far.’ A bit Presbyterian, a bit hair shirt.
We sat in amiable silence, then I said, ‘I’m not being funny, but have you ever thought of modelling?’
She pushed some wet hair over her face and sucked on a strand. Perhaps she was embarrassed. ‘Yeah, I have. Ages ago. It’s not a good business for girls. Makes them vulnerable. You can get caught up in things.’
‘What things?’
‘Dodgy stuff. There are blokes who hang around models like, well, like hyenas round meat.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said. ‘The modelling scouts appear to have passed me by.’ The self-deprecating joke – safe haven to fatties everywhere.
‘Actually, plus size is a growing area,’ she said and I flushed. I wasn’t prepared for her to acknowledge the elephant in the room quite so readily. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean … You’re not big.’
‘Thanks,’ I said but the atmosphere had darkened and she got up off the sofa.
‘Better get dressed,’ she said.
‘Shouldn’t we talk about what happened?’ I said. ‘About the car accident. About going to the police?’
‘Nothing serious,’ she said. ‘Not worth making a fuss.’
Angel opened the bathrobe and showed me her torso – the left side. She had a huge bruise – deep red, black in places – from her bra strap down to the waistband of her knickers.
‘It’s feeling a lot better,’ she said.
‘I just don’t get it,’ I told her. Then I went to the kitchen to wash up our tea mugs. ‘You were hit by a car and you don’t want to tell the police about it?’
Angel moved to stand at my bathroom mirror, in order to re-Goth. My flat is tiny, so it’s easy to talk across rooms.
I said to her, ‘What if the bloke was drunk and he goes and hits a child next?’
‘It was probably my fault,’ she said. ‘Maybe I wasn’t looking where I was going. I think I stepped out without thinking.’
‘CCTV will show what happened,’ I said. I had come out into the hall, drying my hands on a tea towel and watching her layer awful black pencil all over her eyelids. Crying shame, shading over such a lovely face. ‘I don’t think there’s anywhere on earth with more CCTV than Kilburn High Road. And anyway, even if you did step out, it’s still an offence to drive away from an accident. He should’ve stopped at the very least to make sure he hadn’t killed you.’
‘Yeah, well, he didn’t, did he, so let’s just drop it, OK?’
She’d finished with the kohl pencil and mascara, and was zipping up her makeup bag. She came out of the bathroom and was peering in at my box room – it had a single mattress on the floor and one of those concertina laundry airers, hung with stiff tea towels.
‘You’ve got an extra room,’ she said.
‘Think calling it a room is stretching it.’
‘Can I ask a favour?’ she said. ‘It won’t be for long.’
She told me she wanted to stay a while, to get herself straight. I assumed she meant laying off the Lambrini, in which case I wasn’t too sure my flat was her best bet, it being above an entire shop full of cheap spirits and tins of super-strength lager – killing the poor quicker and younger. Carlsberg Special Brew, Tennent’s Super and Skol Super 9%. They used to die at 65, now they die at 45, even though they look 65. But I digress.
